Origins! Day 3 Wrap-Up

After the day 1 vendor rush settles down, people start playing games for reelz ~

Corinne Mahaffey, 18 June 2016

The general assault on the dealers room that began yesterday at 10 am continued, somewhat abated, today. Today was the day everyone sat down to ponder their 5 minute or 5 hour games over their favorite caffeinated beverage – a particular necessity for those whose last game of the day would end at 10 am the next day.

Tragically for Queen and Country, the Hive won a marginal victory at the end of a three day battle for the control of a hive in the Amazon.

The Grogheads booth saw lots of traffic in all its games; Liberty or Death is so popular, and so sold out, that we have had offers to buy our demo copies.

Grogheads must regretfully insist that Brant /did not/ win the Katzinger Pickle Eating Contest in both the speed and quantity categories in the Amateur Division.

Terrain for Beginners

I attended two how-to-build-terrain classes for those who wanted to up their game from green felt sheets. (There is a third class on weathering and distressing, that I sadly did not get to.) That would be a dozen adults and several kids. Everyone was presented with a three level foam island and instuctions and tools to take off the square edges. Soon, everyone was industriously scraping away. Fourty minutes later most were still industrially scraping away, but some had moved on the black base coat.

Sawdust and tempura makes a very acceptable flocking. The kids realized that glitter glue would add sparkle to water. Two of them made volcanos with red glitter glue.

The second class was how to build twisted green wire and shredded twine leafy trees and stick and furnace filter pines. A lot of glue and flocking later and everyone had their own grove. Flocking, by the way, is truly the glitter of gaming. That stuff goes everywhere!

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One of our patient teachers is a retired elementary teacher. Building terrain is her artistic outlet, discovered while staying with friends whose kids were into 40K. Playing surfaces led to oil tanks led to watching videos on building model train landscapes to teach herself how to build terrain led back to teaching. Think of it as a cautionary tale – friends don’t let friends build minis terrain. No, it’s that this hobby makes you interact with kids! No…. Er… We lost the plot.